Knicks shooting guard Justin Holiday was in New Orleans this weekend for the wedding of his sister-in-law. Joining him as a wedding guest was his brother, Jrue Holiday of the Pelicans. The Big Easy weekend — with both brothers out of the playoffs — was for drinking and dancing. Soon, they will talk about their…

And on Easter, Kristaps Porzingis smiled. Two days after blowing off his exit interview with Knicks president Phil Jackson without notification, Porzingis posed in a series of happy photos Sunday, bicycling in the sunshine. One shot was of Porzingis, out from his Midtown apartment, looking giddy while rolling along the West Side Highway bike path….

90 comments on “Knicks Morning News (2017.04.17)”

Phil basically told the truth about Melo in his press conference, or at least some version of the truth. But like many have written, it’s really dickish to “hold your stars accountable” when Phil absolves himself of any responsibility. Triangle sucks? The coaches aren’t coaching it right or with enough belief, and there is rebellion within the players. Players he acquired stink? They are playing the Triangle hard enough. Team culture is rotten? It’s Melo’s fault. Worst 3 year stretch in franchise history, all under his watch? I’m building (and rebuilding and rebuilding) a foundation for the future, and of course I didn’t mean that we’d make the playoffs every year, and by the way, it’s Melo’s fault.

Seriously, what kind of leader of your basketball operations does stuff like this? Even if what he says is mostly true about Melo, Phil still bears at least 50% responsibility for this dumpster fire, and yet he accepts none of it.

So while he told the truth about Melo, I absolutely agree with what seems like most of the players that the whole thing is BS.

btw, I truly hope Adam Silver is taking this whole situation very seriously. It is far worse now with the Knicks than it was even at the end of the Isiah era, where David Stern basically forced Donnie Walsh on the franchise. Between the Oakley situation, open mutiny including one of the young stars of the league (KP) and one of the most marketable stars of this generation (Melo), and Phil openly driving one of the flagship franchises into a ditch, there seems to be ample opportunity for some adults to step in and somehow make this right.

You guys can complain about everything but this team is getting better now thar Phil will actually have draft choices to use. It’s nearly impossible to improve without them. Oh, and please no more Melo. Let’s turn the page any way we can.

Jackson’s narcissism, awful human management skills and lack of media savvy is horrific and only serves to exacerbate his poor performance as the president of the team. His process of managing the Melo situation is much like Trump’s with North Korea in that both show a lack of understanding of the relative power positions of the other party involved as well as an understanding of the thinking of the other party. While you can’t question the liberty of Jackson to hold Melo accountable, you have to question the timing and public nature of it. While it is no secret that Jackson wants to unload Melo, bashing him serves no purpose towards making that happen. As for Silver intervention, one would hope that happens. Perhaps a public clamor for it might push Silver towards this.
( As much as my mind tells me that better to be a lottery than an 7th or 8th seed, it sucks watching the intensity of the playoffs and never being a part of it)

I wonder whether an extreme bias towards scoring guards in Harden-Russ-Curry mode is going to cause bigs to be undervalued in this draft. The first big on the board right now is Markkanen, and he’s only there due to his 3-pt shooting. There’s also some good looking defensive wings that are not being talked about. Is it possible that the value in this draft is in the 10-20 range?

Just to clarify, I’m not saying that the 1-10 players are anything like Harden, Russ or Curry, only that the league is valuing smalls over bigs and 3-pt shooting over defense and post play in part due to them.

there aren’t that many good bigs in the draft.. there’s zach and maybe john collins and that’s about it… everyone else i don’t think is going to be any more than a backup…. as good a year for bigs 2015 was.. it’s as bad this year with them…

anunoby seems like good value in the 10-20 range but i think that’s it… maybe bacon and kennard but they seem like standard 1st rd’ers… this is the draft where you really want to be in the top 6-8…

Collins, Collins, and Patton are all top 10 prospects in my eyes, with Zach Collins being top 5. He’s currently projected 11 on DX and is a great value pick. If we didn’t already have Willy/KP I’d seriously think about picking him if Fox were off the board.

Also Thornwell has been getting a lot of love from statistical draft models and should probably be a first rounder. I don’t think he’ll get drafted in the first but it should happen. We need to get him.

It really sucks that Jackson has turned out to be such a dud as a team president. As someone who goes back to the last championship teams, and who always regretted that the Knicks didn’t lock him in when he was with the Albany Patroons, I am really bummed that he has been so much worse than I had hoped.

There are some glimmers of hope, though. I’m not gonna make too much out of KP’s insolence. Bottom line is that he’s locked in for the next 3 years. We have Willy on a cap-friendly deal for the next 3 years. We have a top draft pick coming our way, hopefully we won’t blow this opportunity. Kuz is not all that bad. Holiday may re-sign on a mid-level deal. Baker might be back. O’Quinn may go for $ instead of staying close to home, but at least we have him at a discount for one more year.

If we dump Melo and get any kind of an asset for him w/o tying up cap space in a bum, that helps too. Although if we re-sign Rose, that good work will be for naught. Please don’t re-sign him, I’d rather watch a D-leaguer that hustles on D than his one-trick pony ass getting torched every night.

Then we only have the Noah’s rotting whale carcass of a contract to rue over. Lee and Thomas are no bargains but not impediments to success either. There is a glimmer of hope that the situation improves going forward. Just not as quickly or effectively as any of us would have hoped.

The bigs in this draft aren’t very good, and the one guy who was any good (Harry Giles) was slated to be the #1 pick before his knee issues limited his ability to play at Duke. Next year there are two bigs projected in the top 5 in Mohamed Bamba and DeAndre Ayton. I don’t think anybody is undervaluing bigs. In fact, Zach Collins was a reserve big man and he’s being seen as a top 10 pick. Size still matters in the league and teams still understand the importance of good post players. This just so happened to be an elite guard class where all of Fultz, Ball, Smith Jr, Ntilikina, Monk, and Fox are high upside players with good-elite size and athleticism for the position.

btw, I truly hope Adam Silver is taking this whole situation very seriously. It is far worse now with the Knicks than it was even at the end of the Isiah era, where David Stern basically forced Donnie Walsh on the franchise. Between the Oakley situation, open mutiny including one of the young stars of the league (KP) and one of the most marketable stars of this generation (Melo), and Phil openly driving one of the flagship franchises into a ditch, there seems to be ample opportunity for some adults to step in and somehow make this right.

As bad it seems right now, nothing Phil will ever do will probably match the Anucha Brown Sanders fiasco. That was a harassment case charged with major racial/gender problems that brought a level of organizational embarrassment to the NBA not seen until the Donald Sterling fiasco. You had our team president/coach fondling one of his subordinates, that very same man making problematic sexual/racial statements about how whites and blacks should treat women in a deposition, a front office functioning as a fraternity would with our star player admitting to sexing an intern during work hours, etc.

John Collins is the shortest 6’10” I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes in around 6’8″ at the draft combine. He’s a good player, though. Justin Patton is a poor rebounder for a center although he’s a damn efficient scorer.

Zach Collins appears to be legit though he fouls like it’s going out of style and he was a reserve. I’d take Zach Collins in the top 5 despite the red flags.

Haha, you know the answer to that question. I wouldn’t give a vet’s minimum to Carmelo Anthony.

And re: Westbrook’s MVP line last night: it’s a regular season award, so I wouldn’t penalize him for being swept by the Rockets while averaging 16 turnovers per game, but that kind of line happened a lot during the regular season. He’s one of the best players in the league and I won’t be mad if he gets the award, but he has major flaws in his game. Half-court shooting and ball possession are two of them.

Silky, yes the Lakers are a possibility now when considering options for Melo because Magic Johnson has expressed great admiration for Melo recently and they might want a “star” to go with their very young team. I’d take their late first for him and call it a day.

i still think the most plausible destination for melo where we get something in return is washington… they probably overrate him just enough to include value back which probably means two future firsts…

we will probably need to take back mahinmi and morris so we def need a third team to take on morris if we do that but the structure for a deal is there if melo wants to go there…

He’s a waste of a roster slot. Career .490 TS%? If you aren’t above .550 TS% as a scoring wing (exception made for low-usage SG with elite on-ball defense), you aren’t worth the money, especially if you’re a guy who’s been in the league since 2010. We know he is a bad player. Why not take an undrafted 4-year college player at a fraction of the price and try to hit a home run?

It’s the Seth Curry thing all over again. The Knicks tried to “rehab” Rose and Jennings, and failed on both. We could have had Seth Curry on a team-friendly contract. Is he a great player? Nah, but he’s providing excellent value and is tied up at a bargain-basement deal through his athletic prime.

@28 that’s part of what makes the Knicks so frustrating. They show the ability to do that with the O’Quinn deal and then decide to not play him heavy minutes. Then they complete ignore Seth Curry. Real annoying shit there.

@28 Agreed on all counts. Here’s where we disagree (I think, unless you are just being contrarian.) I think Melo for Turner makes sense for Portland. With their monster ball-dominant guard combo, he’d be playing mostly off the ball where his flaws are diminished somewhat. He’d probably give them 2 years at least league-average production for an overpay of about $12 million per year, which is better than the 3 years of replacement level production they will get out of Turner for an overpay of $16 million per year. In an even swap, there is no question that this would be a heist for Portland. That’s why a mid-first round pick would be needed to make it worthwhile to eat Turner’s ghastly deal for 3 years.

And there is an outside chance that Melo actually helps the Blazers a lot. in the next two years. Or that he opts out of either his NTC or exercises the player option in his contract. No such options for Turner.

that’s a hard no for me on taking on Evan Turner, unless it comes with at least 2 first round picks and someone like Mo Harkless. Actually maybe I would consider Turner + Harkless + 2 first round picks. Value wise that’s reasonable, although Turner’s contract goes a year longer than Melo. (Harkless’s does too but it’s more in line with his production, and he still has room to grow as a player).

I don’t necessarily think that Portland does that (at all). And if Lala has any say in it, I don’t think she does Portland, even though it’s a pretty nice city.

What makes anyone think Lala is going to Portland, much less Melo? You might as well be suggesting trades with the Jazz. He’s not waiving his NTC for that. I know they lived in Denver, but then again they moved away.

If you’ve never been to Portland: it’s extremely white. Like, unbelievably white. When I take a flight to NYC or Chicago, I’m like, “Whoa, I almost forgot that there are POCs in this country.” Mostly due to institutional racism (sorry Ras1980 and bobneptune, but it’s true) that prevented blacks from owning property for a very long time. Even though liberalism is pretty far left here — so much so that voters elected a communist bookshop owner to “fight” the housing crisis by pushing ridiculous rent control laws that will eventually fuck our housing supply as badly as SF/NYC’s — I’d imagine it’s still a weird place for minorities.

tl;dr There’s no fucking way La La would want to live here. It’s basically an overgrown mall town full of white people who love REI, micro sours and single-origin espresso. It’s not going to happen.

Mostly due to institutional racism (sorry Ras1980 and bobneptune, but it’s true) that prevented blacks from owning property for a very long time.

I am not a race-denier in the least bit. My own work is on race, nation and U.S. imperialism. As a man of color who existed in the academy I know how a bit about institutional racism, especially the neutral, post-racist dialogue you often hear among white liberals/academics. But I also acknowledge how the discourse of racism has been mobilized in a politically correct discourse which has become weaponized as a means stifling dialogue, which is why I don’t buy half the shit I read by hucksters like Lebron who will make a row about an old white man like Phil Jackson using the word “posse” to avoid his legitimate criticisms.

I am not a race-denier in the least bit. My own work is on race, nation and U.S. imperialism. As a man of color who existed in the academy I know how a bit about institutional racism, especially the neutral, post-racist dialogue you often hear among white liberals/academics. But I also acknowledge how the discourse of racism has been mobilized in a politically correct discourse which has become weaponized as a means stifling dialogue, which is why I don’t buy half the shit I read by hucksters like Lebron who will make a row about an old white man like Phil Jackson using the word “posse” to avoid his legitimate criticisms.

I could see wanting Jrue if we can’t get one of the true primary facilitators in this draft, ie fultz, ball, or fox, if only because I’m starting to get genuinely worried about Kristaps. If we end up with another year of ball dominant PG play, his development could be in serious trouble.

But would LaLa and his kids have to move at this point? As an NBA player, he’s on the road half the time anyway. But I think he sez no more Bc he doesn’t think they are close enough to real contention.

If we draft Frank, I’m still in favor of adding another PG in free agency because of my aforementioned concern about getting KP someone who will facilitate for him. Frank is the youngest player in the draft, I believe, and would probably benefit from not being thrown right into the fire.

I’m now guessing that Melo would expand his list of acceptable teams to include, Miami, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, San Antonio, and possibly Dallas. The Texas teams would give him a huge pay raise just on the taxes he would save.

We could do Bosh + Miami’s first for Melo straight up on draft night to get around the Stepien rule.

I think that’s a move Riley would actually consider if he’s interested in competing rather than doing a rebuild the proper way. That’s essentially Melo for a #14 pick, which is reasonable if you’re most NBA GMs (i.e. If you’re dumb) He’d hang up the phone at the mention of Winslow, however.

If we trade with the Lakers it’d have to involve Deng’s contract which I would grudgingly take on if it meant we got their #28 pick. But it’s a tough sell because the contract will take 3 more years to get off the books. That’s a long time.

Since Magic seems so eager to add a superstar maybe we could extract his high #1 for Melo. That would probably be too good to ask. If not that, then possibly his #28 pick and Ingram?
Do they have cap room?
According to this they have somewhere near $19 mil in cap room:http://www.spotrac.com/nba/los-angeles-lakers/cap/2017/

Keep in mind GM Magic Johnson = Coach Magic Johnson (not Player Magic Johnson) so anything is possible unless Phil told Jeanie at the last Thanksgiving dinner that Melo’s done, stick a fork in him. But, if not, Magic would do this THIS TRADE.

I honestly don’t know what the optimal play is, it really is a shitty situation. I did like your Miami idea

I think if that is the best offer we can get then we need to just axe Rambis/PHIL and let Melo play out his contract and maybe reevaluate another trade at the deadline. I mean Melo might opt out after next season anyway, right?

But as you said PHIL ain’t going anywhere so…

We would be paying Deng/Noah a combined 37~ for the next 3 years. PUKEEEEEEE

I think Blake’s gone in a sign and trade to Boston, with melo, lee and koq going to the clips and the knicks ending up with smart, brice and next year’s nets #1. That’s as good as we can hope for anyway

I think Blake’s gone in a sign and trade to Boston, with melo, lee and koq going to the clips and the knicks ending up with smart, brice and next year’s nets #1. That’s as good as we can hope for anyway

As good as we can hope for? I think we’d all do cartwheels down 7th Ave. if that deal went down.

But it ain’t gonna happen, why would LA basically trade Griffin for Melo? That doesn’t make them any better, probably makes them worse.

In general, I don’t trade Melo unless its a good deal for us. Let’s not forget that even if you buy into the anti-Melo hype, Melo is still a league-average player, give or take. I would play hardball with him. The Knicks have all the leverage right now, being that he has (in Melo’s mind, many here believe he’s already done) two years left of being an impact player on a contending team. My presentation to Melo would be exactly what Phil has stated (even though he should have said it privately): telling him that the team is transitioning to a youth-based model and that his role will be diminished, and that the team will not contend during Melo’s (or Phil’s) contract, and leaving it up to Melo to either stay around for the ride under those conditions or to find a deal that benefits the team. I’m not worried about his influence in the locker room. If he becomes a problem, “Stephon Marbury” him: tell him to stay away from the team and make it clear that you won’t release him until after he is not playoff eligible in 2019. Then leave it up to him to decide whether he opts out of the last year of his contract.

I wouldn’t take on Bosh’s contract or Deng’s contract unless there is at least 2 assets coming back, and I mean assets; not a young scrub. I’d do the deal with Miami if both Winslow and their #16 pick is involved, but nothing less. With the Lakers, I want Tarik Black and their #28 pick (at least Deng might still be able to play.)

Love only took 7 FGA, though, so he obviously wasn’t making much of an impact on the game. Show me a 10-35 playoffs shooting performance and I’ll show you a player creating gravity and making defenses hustle.

Right, it’s amazing how Love can be the first scoring option on his team who demands double teams and can still score that efficiently! Imagine what he could do if he wasn’t playing with 4 scrubs on the court with him all the time!